Learning and Leading at EdCamp

Since as far back as I can remember, I have been one of those people who just can't get enough of learning about the world around me.  I was the kid who was excited for the first day of school, who loved visiting museums in downtown Chicago, and who even made my little brother play school with me when we weren't actually attending one.  It's no surprise, then, that I decided to become an educator.  For someone like me, it's truly a dream come true to spend my days learning and growing.  Today I spent my day learning and leading at #EdCampLdr, an unconventional conference, or "unconference", with several locations around our nation all on the same day.  EdCamp allows education leaders to come together and share ideas in an informal setting.  There are no planned or pre-scheduled presentations--just come with an idea and be ready to discuss it.  The responsibilities of attendees for a session are simple: lead or contribute.  If you don't feel you can do either, you are welcome to get up and check out a different session.  I was fortunate to attend several sessions today that invigorated me--especially as I think about my new role in the fall.

Session 1: Redesigning Learning Spaces
This session focused on learning space design.  I found that a great deal of it coincided with my May visit to Steelcase University in Grand Rapids, Michigan--an experience I HIGHLY recommend to anyone in education.  As a team of teachers and administrators, our group created what we considered to be the ideal learning space.  Using triangulation of learning and the X-formation of moveable tables and desks, we created a space that was flexible, collaborative, and student-centered:

One take-away for me from this session is we don't have to wait for a big budget to redesign our space.  We can move furniture into formations that best meet our students' needs.  We can declutter our space and remove items no longer needed. (This was certainly I was forced to do leaving the classroom and moving to the Learning Commons; I was shocked by how little I actually needed!) Lastly, we can think about what we put on our walls and consider students' perspectives about the classroom, and ask them what they would like in their learning space!  I know I can't wait to get into my Learning Commons in August and move a few things around.  I also plan to explore one of the websites that was suggested to us: Classroom Cribs.

Session 2: Digital Badging for Professional Development
This session was led by both Marcie Faust and Jeff Zoul, innovative, amazing administrators from our district office.  The focus here was examining PD and tying it to obtaining badges along with perks for so many points/badges along the way.  With education moving as rapidly as it is, it's important for school districts to provide opportunities for teachers to learn and grow.  I feel fortunate to work in a district that current uses something called Deerfield College.  Anyone can sign up to teach a Deerfield College class.  There are several optional classes held each month from 3:45-5:00, and it's a great opportunity to share your expertise or learn from a colleague.  Badges will take this experience to a whole new level.  To learn more about what badges are, check out this informative video on YouTube.  It's clear to me that the badging system will create a sort of digital portfolio for teachers where each badge will represent a skill he/she has.  The badging system also plays on the fact that we, as humans, love those extrinsic motivators.  It was scratch 'n sniff stickers on my papers as an elementary student and now it's digital badges as an adult!  Who doesn't like to be recognized for their hard work?

Session 3: #Edudrone Challenge
Drones and droids?  Yes, please!  This session gave us the chance to examine several drones and droids and consider how they could be used in the classroom.  It was one of the coolest conference sessions I've ever attended because we were given the chance to play!  Who doesn't like to play with these cool remote-controlled tech toys?

And I even had a chance to fly one!

(Thanks to Maria Galanis for providing this video of my first flight!)

We also checked Sphero, a super cool little sphere that can do all sorts of neat tricks!

After playing, we got down to business.  There were many cool suggestions for the use of these tools. For the droids, we considered the video capabilities as a real plus; this would allow users to create a great video of a school to show to incoming students or a video that surveys the school property to set up geocaching.  For the Spheros, it was recommended to create a golf course, where students have to code the droid to make it in under par.  It also could be used to create shapes or to do some fun math work--an obstacle course/race where students would collect all of the finish times in order to figure out mean, mode, and range.

I know two more things on my growing wish list!

Session 4: Encouraging Blogging
The title of this blog entry is "Learning and Leading at EdCamp", so this is the part where I stepped up to lead.  Alongside the brilliant and inspiring Maria Galanis, an instructional coach at my school, we led a session about encouraging teachers to blog.  The purpose was to try to overcome the hurdle of the fear and hesitancy that some teachers feel in regards to blogging. Our hope was that by getting more teachers to blog and reflect, they would see the power of this tool and be more inclined to use it with their students.  We certainly didn't have all of the answers coming into our session and used it as an opportunity to have a roundtable discussion.

In the end, there were two major take-aways for me. Since teachers hesitate to blog, perhaps we start with micro-blogging, otherwise known as Twitter.  If teachers become more comfortable jotting down quick thoughts and links, they would be more willing to graduate to full-fledged blogging.  When ready for the next step, perhaps we don't dive in head-first.  Perhaps they buddy up to co-author a blog or we start something like Leyden HS or like Bettendorf did, which gives ownership to everyone in the school; in these blogs, all members of a school community (teachers, administrators, parents, students, support staff, janitors, etc.) share the responsibility of a blog through assigned/self-selected dates.  This approach gives everyone a voice and helps remove some of the fear of blogging--all while showing an authentic audience, the world, what great things are happening within a school!

I know now that Maria and I can't wait to have a Twitter party at school (the second at our school actually) and discuss the idea of a Shepard 360 blog, where we get all different viewpoints of the amazing things happening at our school!


A final thought...
Wow, what a busy day it was at #EdCampLdr!  I highly recommend that any educator or administrator attend an edcamp when you have the opportunity;  you won't regret it!  It was fun to connect with friends and colleagues from my district--past and present.  It was amazing to learn about some of the engaging activities teachers are using in their classrooms.   And it was such an inspiring experience--one that truly left me thinking about the upcoming school year and what sort of changes I hope to evoke in my Learning Commons and in my school.  I can't wait to get started!